On Nov. 8, president Roseann Runte and Carleton were “proud supporters” of the Jewish National Fund (JNF)’s Negev dinner. 

Since the campaign to stop Carleton’s support of the JNF began, several individuals have weighed in supporting the JNF. This is fine. Competing ideas make universities dynamic. However, rather than challenge any of the substantive claims made by Students Against Israeli Apartheid (SAIA), attacks were made on SAIA itself. 

For example, the premise of a letter to the Charlatan by the president of the Israel Awareness Committee was essentially: The JNF plants trees and therefore it is good. SAIA is bad and therefore their message is wrong.

Similarly, in another letter to the Charlatan, professor Inna Bumagin convoluted Canadian jurisdictional responsibilities, falsely claimed Canada withdrew from the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, and asserted that documented discriminatory policies of the JNF were untrue. Merely asserting something as true does not make it so.

SAIA doesn’t object to tree planting. SAIA objects to Carleton supporting the JNF because their bylaws and operations have been deemed discriminatory by the United Nations’ Committee on Economic Social and Cultural Rights in their 1998 report, by Israel’s attorney general, Menachem Mazuz, in his 2005 ruling against the Israel Land Authority, and by Amnesty International.

Responsding to a petition filed by Adalah (the Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel) in 2004, the JNF admitted it does not have to practice equality for all citizens of the state of Israel.

Indeed, Yossef Weitz, the former head of the JNF’s land settlement department once said: “[the] only solution is a Palestine [where] not one village, not one tribe, should be left,” according to The Jewish National Fund by Walter Lehn and Uri Davis.

Most concerning was an email by president Runte to the Carleton community affirming her support for the JNF. Ironically, while this email was being sent, the Russell Tribunal on Palestine, meeting in Cape Town, released its finding that Israel is practicing apartheid.

Rather than defend why Carleton supports a discriminatory organization, president Runte made three arguments: other famous people support the JNF (and therefore it’s OK if she does), Carleton’s support is part of Carleton’s wider community outreach and lastly, Carleton’s support of the JNF is not political, but rather to embrace Judaism. 

If Carleton blindly supports racist organizations for the sake of community outreach, it should review its outreach policy. Respectfully, president Runte’s concept of what constitutes political is rather cavalier. Would the villagers of Al-Araqib, which Amnesty International reported has been destroyed 28 times in the past year so the JNF can build a ‘Peace Forest,’ agree that their dispossession is not political?

In 2008, Carleton emailed the entire university asserting it was not associated with an event featuring the Palestinian Human Rights organization Al-Haq. Yet, president Runte’s 2011 email defended institutional support for an organization that systematically violates Palestinian human rights. Is president Runte’s double standard not political?

Most concerning is the assertion that supporting the JNF is supporting the Jewish community. The JNF doesn’t call itself “100 per cent Jewish,” but rather, “100 per cent Israel.” States are not religions nor should they be construed otherwise. The inspirational religion of Judaism is what makes a Jew a Jew, not a state. 

To say that Israel or the JNF represent all Jews is to say that the actions (good or bad) of those entities are representative of Judaism. This accepts a monolithic understanding of what is in fact a dynamic religion. Monolithic judgments of a religion are dangerous. 

SAIA believes it is imperative that, on issues such as Israel-Palestine, discourse be guided by facts and the law — not hyperbole, misleading insinuations or falsehoods.

In the future, SAIA hopes Carleton withdraws from JNF events and instead, supports ethical organizations.

— Aziz Khatib (SAIA member)

second-year engineering